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January , 2009 started the new series of our study group:
Aftermath
–
President Obama’s Election Victory and the Future of
Empire
Our main goal this quarter will
be to investigate the extent to which the imploding
global economy has and will affect the planet’s
geopolitical landscape. A few things can be said for
sure; first, America’s economic foundation – which
its monstrous military rests on – is no longer so
dynamic. Second, America’s ideology of free markets,
human rights, and democracy has been largely
discredited by Bush’s unilateral use of naked force.
Physical coercion is more than a means of action;
for it is also a form of communication, whose
effectiveness depends upon other factors. Third, we
certainly know how Barack Obama’s gifted rhetoric is
– as Aristotle stated – an important foundation of
power, especially when combined with the capacity to
reward and punish.
Yet, how persuasive can he be
internationally in an environment in which every
national economy is busy trying to save itself, and
how will he be able to change anything domestically
in the face of overwhelming institutional pressures?
Finally, will these domestic and international
pressures foster or impede America’s ongoing
imperial project in an Obama administration?
RECENTLY:
(2008)
Empire at the Crossroads: An
Imperial or Post-Imperial Presidency?
With the myth of its military
invincibility shattered in the Iraq War, an overly
strained economy in dangerous disarray, and its
presumed world leadership image badly tarnished,
scarred and discredited, the coming November
Presidential Election could mark nothing less than a
turning point, a sea change in the course of
American history for the voting public, and thus a
possible change in the structure of its national
character.
In spite of the nuts and bolts
of the usual shopping list of various foreign and
domestic complexities, the real problem for our
ongoing study group this quarter will be what is has
always been since its inception – the whole question
of an American Empire – its very idea, fact,
raison d’être, feasibility, and sustainability
in an increasingly interdependent and globalizing
world.
PAST EVENTS:
The
One-Dimensional Empire: The Leveling-Down of Reality
This quarter we will study how America’s championing
of democracy, human rights and free market
capitalism is leveling down reality. Now that the
public has been persuaded that the mechanisms of
democracy and the free market are one and the same,
a culture of profit and greed is corrupting the
system. Likewise, the new ideology of human rights
has come to be interpreted as the rights of
individuals, which exist independently of any
hierarchy or community in which one might be
situated; rights are universal, not communal or
national. Today, nothing higher stands between the
individual’s right to immediate gratification and
the widest forces of global capitalism, which are
everywhere undermining the last vestiges of
authority and standards of judgment. The
contemporary “epoch of equalization” is forcing
hitherto, more or less, self-contained social
groupings to merge with one another.
We wish to bring a political-edge to cultural
studies by critically examining the geographical
division of labor in a context of developing and
developed nations, which coincides with the
simplification of life into a binary logic of
production and consumption. The dramatic shift from
production to consumption among developed nations is
establishing new markets and legitimizing
multiculturalism, whose suspicion of hierarchy
simultaneously promotes a culture of consumption.
Instead of analyzing popular culture we turn to
business culture, where the imperial spirit is truly
revealed.
If all past empires had a sacred dimension, then
what are the prospects of an American empire whose
dominant ethos is purely worldly? The old gospel of
saving and postponed gratification has been turned
on its head by advertising and easy credit, or what
Herbert Marcuse called “repressive desublimation,”
i.e. shop till you drop. Some pecuniary standards of
American culture may have changed, but the
self-righteous and punitive legacy of America’s
religio-political values remain intact. How does the
joyless fundamentalist rejection of postmodern
values throughout the world challenge America’s
muscular democratization and total market
integration project?
July 21 - SPECIAL GUESTS
Prof. Hans-Jürgen
Kerner on Crime, Conspiracy and Corruption
PAST EVENTS:
January 27, 2006 started the new series of our study group:
Elementary Structures of Imperial Leadership: The Circulation of Elites
As globalization brings prosperity, it also brings a level of inequality that surpasses all historical comparisons. In short, money has become the most flexible tool for social control in the form of reward and punishment. Having last quarter shown how the power elite make foreign policy, we now wish to examine how the super rich work closely with the government to win contracts, subsidies, influence and legitimate legislation in their own interest through the “perception management” of media.
Further Meeting Dates: Feb 24, Mar 31, Apr 28, May 26, June 30,
July 21 ***
PAST EVENTS:
The Empire Study Group expands to Stuttgart
Since November 2005 we have a monthly discussion group at the DAZ (Deutsch Amerikanisches Zentrum James- F-.-Burnes-Institut e.V.)
http://www.daz.org/EmpireStudyGroup.html
Further Meeting Dates: Feb 10, Mar 10, Apr 7, May 5, June 9,
July 14
PAST EVENTS:
September 30, 2005 we continued the last series of our study group:
The Social construction of Empire
as usual we will meet the last Friday each month, 6:45 pm at the d.a.i
Further Meeting Dates: Oct 28, Nov 25, Dez 16
April 29, 2005 started the last series of our study group:
The Social construction of Empire
Further Meeting Dates: May 27, June 24, July 22
During the summer break (2005) we focused on the concept of property. In particular we dealt with this concept in Hobbes, Locke and Adam Smith. We think that property is a core concept in liberalism and since liberalism is THE IDEOLOGY of the empire it was certainly relevant to us.
PAST EVENTS:
September 24 2004 started the last series of our study group:
Imperial Democracy: The Domestic Roots of Empire
We had guest speakers:
Jan. 28, 2005, Prof. Winston Davis (Fulbright Professor for Religious Studies, FU Berlin):
Religion in America and its Influence on Domestic and Foreign Policies
Friday, Dec. 17, 2004, was a presentation by Prof. Gerald Silverberg (Maastricht):
Long Waves in the Global Economy: Hidden Symmetry or Statistical Chimera?
PAST EVENTS:
Jan. 7, 2005 we made an interview with Ulrike Pfeil from the “Schwäbisches Tagblatt”
the article appeared on January 26, 2005
PAST EVENTS:
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